Linda Gustitus

• Biography

  Linda Gustitus served in the U.S. Senate for 24 years as an aide to Sen. Carl Levin. For most of her time in the Senate, she was staff director and chief counsel of the Governmental Affairs Committee subcommittees chaired by Levin. Those subcommittees included Oversight of Government Management, Federal Services and Nuclear Proliferation, and Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. In 2001, Gustitus assumed the position of chief of staff to Levin. She retired from the Senate in January 2003.

  During her tenure, Gustitus led investigations into the operation of the Social Security Disability program, waste in defense contracting, IRS seizure policy, misuse of sweepstakes solicitations, gasoline pricing, Enron and money laundering through private and correspondent banking. She also served as a lead staff person on ethics reform, Independent Counsel statute, campaign finance reform, Whistleblower Protection Act and contracting legislation.

  In June 2008, she was appointed to serve as a commissioner on the bipartisan federal Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

  From 2007 to 2014, Gustitus served as president of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture.

  Gustitus earned her law degree, cum laude, from Wayne State University Law School. She earned her bachelor's degree in 1969 from Oberlin College in Ohio. She has been an adjunct professor of law at the Washington College of Law, American University, and a lecturer for the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University. She also has taught as an adjunct professor at George Washington University School of Public Policy. Prior to working in the Senate, she was a trial attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice in the Civil Division, and she served as an assistant state's attorney in Cook County, Illinois.

• Degrees and Certifications

  J.D., Wayne State University Law School
  A.B., Oberlin College